Character Basics

“You will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential, my young friend.”

- Dr. Paul Stubbs to Wesley Crusher, ‘Evolution’

Your character in Star Trek: Online can be slightly harder to get to grips with than in some other massively multiplayer online games, as your captain is only one of several interlocking elements that together determine what you can do in the game and how effectively you can do it. Your ‘character’ in STO is really a combination of your captain, your bridge officers and your ship.

This guide is intended to provide an overview of these different elements, how they function and how they relate to each other, and introduce the basics of character progression in STO. I’m planning future articles that will cover each of these in more detail, but this should help you get your Starfleet career off to a good start.

(Note that this guide is written for Starfleet characters. The majority of the information also applies to Klingon characters, although some of the terminology is different on the Klingon side.)

Each class can train bridge officers of the same class in advanced abilities (for example, Tactical captains can train Tactical bridge officers, but not Science or Engineering bridge officers)

In all other respects, all three classes have access to the same options, including skills, gear, weapons, bridge officers and ships. This is not to say that your choice of class for your captain isn’t important, simply that your captain’s class is not the only aspect of your overall ‘character’. STO offers more flexibility and options than that of more traditional class-based systems, and doesn’t restrict or ‘pigeon-hole’ the classes to the same extent.

Species and Traits

As well as choosing a class, when creating a new STO character you must also decide on your captain’s species and traits.

Traits are innate bonuses or abilities, representing things that your captain has a natural aptitude in, whether due to their species or individual excellence. Some traits offer bonuses or abilities during ground missions, others are specific to space. Each captain can have four traits in total.

Your captain’s species defines both which traits your captain will automatically have (all Vulcans, for example, have the Logical and Physical Strength traits) and which traits you have to choose from to bring the total up to four. Certain species also offer unique traits (Vulcans, for example, have the option to choose the Nerve Pinch and/or Mind Meld traits, which are not available to any other species).

The exception is the ‘Unknown species’ option, which allows you to design a unique species for your captain, and lets you choose all four traits your captain will have from a wide selection. Unknown species, however, do not have access to the unique traits of the ‘known’ species (you cannot, for example, choose the Nerve Pinch or Mind Meld traits for a captain of an unknown species, as they are unique to Vulcans).

Ranks, Grades, Tiers and Skill Points

Although STO does use a level-based progression system, its structure and terminology are different to other MMOs.

Your captain begins the game as a lowly Ensign, but by the end of the introductory mission sequence will be promoted and begin to advance through the five main ranks:

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Admiral

Each of these ranks is split into 10 grades (with the exception of Admiral, which currently only has 5 grades), the equivalent of levels in other MMOs.

Your captain advances through the grades of his current rank by earning skill points (SP), the equivalent of experience points (XP) in other games. Skill points are earned by defeating opponents, achieving mission objectives and completing missions.

In order to be promoted to the next rank, your captain must spend a set number of skill points. Doing so will earn a promotion to the next rank.

The total number of skill points you must spend in order to qualify for each rank are as follows:

Rank

Total SP Spent

Lieutenant

1500

Lt Commander

6700

Commander

18700

Captain

34700

Admiral

52700

It’s important to understand that you gain grades by earning skill points, but only gain ranks by spending skill points.

Promotion to a higher rank carries several benefits, including access to a new range of ships to command and a new set of skills to learn.

Because of the way that the available ships and skills are arranged into groups by rank, the term Tier is often used when discussing them – Tier 1 corresponding with Lieutenant, Tier 2 with Lt Commander and so on up to Admiral and Tier 5.

Skills

Your captain can purchase in a wide variety of skills, which provide bonuses to various aspects of your character. Skills are purchased with skill points (SP), the STO version of experience points.

Skill Groups and Tiers

The Skills in STO are arranged into groups by similar function and tiers by rank. For example, the Starship Energy Weapons group contains skills that increase your effectiveness with energy weapons (beams and cannons) in space combat:

Within the group, the skills are arrange into 5 tiers according to the minimum rank required to purchase the skill, from left to right. Thus a captain can purchase the Starship Energy Weapons Training skill at Lieutenant (Tier 1, far left), but must be promoted to Lt Commander before being able to buy the Starship Beam Weapons and Starship Cannon Weapons skills (Tier 2, second from left), and all the way to Admiral before being able to access the Starship Antiproton Weapons and Starship Polaron Weapons skills (Tier 5, far right).

Note that there is no rigid skill ‘tree’ in STO - you do not, for example, need to buy Starship Energy Weapons Training before you can buy Starship Beam Weapons or Starship Cannon Weapons. The only restrictions are your captain’s rank and available unspent skill points.

All captains have access to the following skill groups:

Starfleet Training

Starship Energy Weapons

Starship Projectile Weapons

Starship Engineering

Starship Operations

In addition, each class has a unique skill group:

Tactical captains get the Tactical Officer group

Engineer captains get the Engineering Officer group

Science captains get the Science Officer group

Skill Levels and Costs

All skills in STO have 9 levels. Your captain starts with no levels in any skills, and purchases skill levels with skill points.

The cost of a skill level depends on the tier of the skill:

Skill Tier

SP per Skill Level

1 (Lieutenant)

100

2 (Lt Commander)

200

3 (Commander)

300

4 (Captain)

400

5 (Admiral)

500

How Skills Work – The Basics

Each level in a skill grants a bonus to specific aspects of your character. For example, the Starship Energy Weapons Training skill increases the damage of all energy weapons on your ship. The more levels you have in the skill, the greater the damage bonus.

The effects of the different skills can be broadly broken down according to the skill groups:

Starfleet Training skills either increase the speed, turn rate and hull strength of ships (the ‘Command’ and ‘Captain’ skills) or increase the effectiveness of your bridge officer’s ground abilities and some space abilities (the ‘Team Leader’ skills)

What Affects What

All ships, space weapons and most abilities are affected by three different skills, and the bonus from each skill stacks. In most cases, each ship, weapon or ability is affected by one Lieutenant (Tier 1) skill, one Lt Commander (Tier 2) skill, and one Commander, Captain or Admiral (Tier 3, 4 or 5) skill.

In the case of the ship and weapon skills, then, it’s normally fairly easy to see which three skills will affect something. In the case of abilities, you can see which skills affect them by opening the Ability window (press ‘P’), selecting the skill and reading the information on the right-hand side.

For example, the Emergency Power to Weapons I ability is affected by your Starship Warp Core Training (T1), Starship Weapon System Maintenance (T2) and Starship Weapon Efficiency (T3) skills:

For more details on how skills function, how their bonuses are calculated and a lot of numbers, see the Skills: The Numbers article.

Abilities

Abilities are the ‘powers’ that you use in combat by clicking on your hotbar or pressing the appropriate keyboard shortcut. Abilities are specific to either ground or space combat, so you will have different abilities available in each.

In STO, you gain abilities from several sources:

Captain abilities – your captain earns three abilities as you progress through each rank. Captain abilities you have earned are always available to you in the appropriate type of combat, regardless of what ship, bridge officers and equipment you are using. Like promotions, captain abilities are earned by spending skill points. Assuming you spend your SP as you earn them:

At around Grade 3 your captain will learn a generic space ability available to all classes

At around Grade 5 your captain will learn a class-specific ground ability

At around Grade 8 your captain will learn a class-specific space ability

In addition, as your captain advances through the ranks, the abilities earned in previous ranks automatically upgrade to stronger versions

Kit abilities – your captain can use special ‘kit’ items, which grant 1 to 4 ground abilities. Kit abilities are available to you in ground combat as long as the kit is equipped.

Ship abilities – Science Vessels have the innate ability to target their opponent’s subsystems in combat, and grant four abilities (one each for targeting weapons, shields, engines and auxiliary systems) to any captain commanding them

Using Abilities

In general, abilities are fairly straightforward – you activate the ability by clicking on it or using the appropriate keyboard shortcut, the ability applies its effect, and must then recharge before you can use it again.

Many abilities require a target, and cannot be activated until an appropriate target is selected. Beneficial abilities that can be used on your character or on a friendly character will automatically affect you if used without a target or when an enemy is targeted.

For example, if you activate the Science Team ability when you have no target or an enemy ship targeted, it will repair your shields and apply a buff to your Starship Operations skill bonus. If you activate the ability with a friendly ship targeted, the target ship will receive the benefits.

There are some differences between how abilities are controlled in space and ground combat:

In space combat, all your character’s abilities are completely under your control, and will only be activated when you select them

In ground combat, all your captain and kit abilities are under your control, but your bridge officers will automatically use their ground abilities as they see fit. You can, if you wish, order a bridge officer to use one of their abilities by clicking on the relevant icon in the team window

Systems and Cooldowns

Most space abilities are linked to a specific system aboard your ship. This system will be listed at the start of the ability’s description in the ability window. For example, Emergency Power to Weapons is a ‘System: Batteries’ ability:

Abilities that are linked to the same system generally share a cooldown in addition to their normal recharge timer. While a system’s cooldown is in effect, other abilities that use that system cannot be activated.

For example, activating the Emergency Power to Weapons ability triggers a 20 second cooldown on your ship’s batteries system. During that time, no other ‘System: Batteries’ ability (such as Emergency Power to Shields) can be activated.

Getting the most out of Abilities

Your character’s abilities, together with when and how you use them, can have a huge impact on your effectiveness in combat, so it makes sense to try and get the most out of them.

The base effect of an ability is determined by the ability and its level – most abilities have three levels, and the higher the level of the ability, the stronger the base effect.

For example, the Torpedo: High Yield ability increases the strength of your ship’s next torpedo attack. Torpedo: High Yield III gives a bigger damage bonus than Torpedo: High Yield II, which in turn gives a bigger damage bonus than Torpedo: High Yield I.

This base effect can then be improved by several factors, which vary depending on the type of ability:

Skills - the strength of most abilities is affected by your captain’s levels in three specific skills (see the Skills section, above, for details of how to find which skills affect an ability), although there are some exceptions:

Space abilities that affect your next attack with a weapon are generally not linked to three specific skills, as their effect is modified by the three weapon skills linked to the weapon in question. For example, Torpedo: High Yield increases the damage of your next torpedo attack, which is also increased by the three weapon skills that affect the specific type of torpedo launcher you are using

In ground combat, your captain’s ground abilities and kit abilities are generally improved in strength by three skills (normally skills from the Tactical, Engineering or Science Officer group, according to your captain’s class), but the ground abilities of your bridge officers are improved by your captain’s level in the Tactical, Engineering or Science Team Leader skill (according to the class of the bridge officer) and the bridge officer’s own level in the ability (see Bridge Officers, below, for more details)

Items - many items that you can equip on your ship give bonuses to skills, which in turn will increase the strength of any abilities affected by that skill. Deflector dish items, for example, generally give bonuses to skills in the Starship Operations group, and thus increase the strength of certain Science abilities

Traits - a few of the traits you can select during character creation give bonuses to skills , which in turn will increase the strength of any abilities affected by that skill. The Astrophysicist trait, for example, gives a bonus to Starship Operations Training, and thus increases the strength of many Science abilities.

Other Abilities – some abilities give bonuses to certain skills for a short period of time, which in turn will increase the strength of any abilities affected by that skill. The Science Team ability, for example, gives a temporary bonus to the target’s Starship Operations Training, which will increase the strength of many Science abilities used while the bonus lasts

Ship Power Levels - some abilities are directly affected by the power available to a specific ship system when they are activated. Abilities that improve your next energy weapon attack are affected by your ship’s current weapon power, as this will determine the base damage of the attack, which will then be modified by the ability. Several Science abilities, such as Tachyon Beam, are directly affected by your auxiliary power level

Bridge Officers

Your bridge officers (often shortened to BO or boff) are your captain’s equivalent of Spock, Bones and Scotty, and are just as important to your success. In space, your bridge officers give you access to a wide variety of abilities in addition to those of your captain and your ship, while on solo away missions up to four of them will accompany you, automatically following your lead and fighting alongside you.

Bridge officers are effectively ‘mini-characters’ in their own right that you develop alongside your captain. Like your captain, they have classes, ranks, abilities and skills, but there are some important differences in how they function.

Starfleet Merits and Bridge Officer Skill Points

Your character has two resources that are dedicated to bridge officers, Starfleet Merits and bridge officer skill points (BOSP).

Starfleet Merits are earned by completing missions, and are used to requisition new bridge officers from Starfleet, to promote them, and to train them in new abilities via Bridge Officer Trainers

Bridge officer skill points go into a central pool and are only assigned to specific officers when you spend them

Bridge officer skill points are completely separate from your captain’s skill points – they do not affect your captain’s rank or grade in any way

Unlike captain skill points, there is no cap on bridge officer skill points – your character can continue earning them indefinitely

Class and Rank

Like captains, bridge officers are either Tactical, Engineering or Science Officers, and have the same general areas of focus. A bridge officer’s class determines which abilities they can use and which stations they can be assigned to aboard ship.

Bridge officers start as Ensigns and can progress to Commander. There are no grades for bridge officers, but your captain can only command bridge officers of a rank lower than theirs – in order to promote a bridge officer from Ensign to Lieutenant, your captain must be at least a Lt Commander, and so on.

Promoting a bridge officer costs Starfleet Merits, and in order to qualify for promotion, the bridge officer must have had a certain number of bridge officer skill points spent on them.

Bridge Officer Traits

Like captains, bridge officers have four traits that give them unique bonuses. Bridge officers generally have ground traits, and may have versions of traits that are weaker or stronger than the standard captain versions – for example, a ‘basic’ version of a trait generally offers half the bonus of the standard captain version.

Abilities and Skills

Ensign bridge officers have access to one space and one ground ability, and gain access to an additional space and ground ability at each rank, up to a maximum of four space and four ground abilities at Commander.

You can see which abilities a bridge officer has and which ones they will gain access to at higher ranks on their Skills tab in the Character Status window:

Bridge officers also have skills – one for each of their abilities. Like your captain’s skills, bridge officer skills have 9 levels, although a bridge officer always has level 1 in the skill for any ability they can use.

Bridge officer skill levels are purchased with bridge officer skill points. Each level costs half as many points as a captain skill of the appropriate rank:

BO Skill Rank

BOSP per Skill Level

Ensign

50

Lieutenant

100

Lt Commander

150

Commander

200

The effects of bridge officer skills vary according to whether they are space or ground abilities:

A bridge officer’s skill levels in their space abilities reduce the recharge time of the ability (generally by 5 seconds per level), allowing it to be used more often, but do not affect the strength of the ability’s effect – that’s influenced by your captain’s skills as explained in the Skills section, above

A bridge officer’s skill levels in their ground abilities increase the strength of the ability, along with your captain’s skill level in the appropriate Team Leader skill, but not the recharge time (which is generally quite short for ground abilities)

In order to qualify for a promotion, a bridge officer must have had a minimum number of bridge officer skill points spent on them. For example, to be promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant, a bridge officer must have had 200 bridge officer skill points spent on them.

Acquiring Bridge Officers

The number of active bridge officers you can have increases with your captain’s rank, beginning with four at Lieutenant. You can acquire new bridge officers in several ways:

Requisition from Starfleet – the Requisition Officers at starbases have a selection of bridge officers available that can be purchased with Starfleet Merits. The selection changes over time, so if you can’t find one you want, check back later

Mission Rewards - some missions include a bridge officer or choice of bridge officers as part of their reward for successful completion

Progress Rewards – as your captain advances through the ranks, you will occasionally be approached by bridge officers eager to join your crew (this is presented as a ‘mission’ via the ‘Hail Starfleet’ window)

The Exchange – it is possible to buy and sell bridge officers for energy credits on the Exchange. At present, only ‘candidates’ can be traded on the exchange, but it’s possible that this might be changed

When you acquire a new bridge officer, they will appear on the Assignments tab of the Character Status window, in the Bridge Officer Candidates section:

In order to have the new bridge officer join your crew, double-click on them and select the Join option in the window that opens.

Bridge Officer Rarity

Bridge officers, like items, weapons and other equipment, have differing degrees of rarity, and use the same colour-coding as items – white for common, green for uncommon, blue for rare, and so on.

For example, the two bridge officer candidates in the screenshot above are both green, or uncommon.

In general, Starfleet’s Requisition Officers only offer ‘common’ bridge officers, but the rarer types can be earned from missions and progress rewards. Rarer bridge officers may have stronger versions of the standard traits or unique abilities that are not available anywhere else.

Retraining Bridge Officers

The abilities that a bridge officer knows can be changed by swapping out an existing ability for a new one. There are several ways in which bridge officers can be retrained:

Bridge Officer Candidates – if you acquire a new bridge officer candidate with an ability that you would like to transfer to one of your existing officers, you can do so by double-clicking on the candidate and selecting the Train Up option. You will be able to select one of the candidate’s abilities and one of your existing officers of the appropriate class, and the candidate will train the selected officer in the selected ability. Note that this option ‘uses up’ the candidate, who will then depart

Captain Training – certain skills, when raised to level 9, unlock the ability to train bridge officers in the level III version of a specific ability (if a skill offers this option, it will be noted in the skill’s description). You can then use the Train button on a bridge officer’s Status tab in the Character Status window to train them in this ability. Note that in order to train a bridge officer in this way, your captain must be of the same class as the ability and the bridge officer to be trained – for example, a Tactical captain with Starship Torpedo Weapons-9 and Starship Shield Efficiency-9 can train a Tactical bridge officer in Torpedo: High Yield III, but cannot train an Engineer bridge officer in Emergency Power to Shields III, even though he has level 9 in the appropriate skill

There are a couple of things to bear in mind when retraining bridge officers in different abilities:

Bridge officers can only have one space ability and one ground ability per rank. Training a bridge officer in a new ability always replaces one of their existing abilities and the skill associated with that ability. Any bridge officer skill points you had spent on the previous ability’s skill are lost

All bridge officer abilities are associated with a specific rank. For example, it is not possible to replace a bridge officer’s Ensign space ability with a Lieutenant space ability – the new Lieutenant ability will replace the officer’s existing Lieutenant ability

Bridge Officers and Stations

On away missions, your bridge officers always have full access to all their ground abilities according to their rank, and will use these abilities automatically and at your command. In space, however, a bridge officer must be assigned to a station on your ship in order for you to make use of their abilities.

Bridge officer stations have both a class and a rank. The class of a station limits the class of the bridge officer that can be assigned to it, and the rank of the station limits the rank of abilities that the assigned bridge officer can use.

The number, class and rank of the stations aboard a ship is defined by the ship type, and can be see on the Assignments tab of the Character Status window. For example, the Light Cruiser that you will command while a Lieutenant has three stations – an Ensign Tactical station, an Ensign Engineer station and an Ensign Science station:

As the stations are Ensign rank, bridge officers assigned to those stations will only grant you their Ensign space abilities, regardless of their actual rank. This is represented visually by the small icons next to the station, which show the abilities you gain from having the current bridge officer assigned to the station – any abilities an officer has but cannot use at the station will be shown ‘greyed out’.

Ships

The ship your captain commands has a significant impact on your character’s performance in space combat.

Like skills, abilities and many other aspects of the character system in STO, ships are divided into tiers according to rank. Upon being promoted to a new rank, your captain will gain access to the appropriate tier of ships.

Note that the only ship available in Tier 1 is the default Light Cruiser that you are given command over at the end of the introductory sequence of missions. In order to gain access to new ships, your captain must first be promoted to Lieutenant Commander, at which point you will gain access to the Tier 2 ships.

Ship Categories

There are three broad categories of ship available to players in STO, each with different areas of focus:

Cruiser ships are general-purpose designs, focussed on survivability and durability. The various versions of the USS Enterprise are all cruisers.

Science Vessels are research and exploration ships incorporating the latest Starfleet technology, focussed on weakening and incapacitating their opponents and supporting their allies. The USS Voyager from Star Trek: Voyager is a science vessel.

Category Bonuses

Each of the three categories of ship has certain inherent bonuses:

Escorts have a bonus to weapon power output and are the only category of ships that can mount cannon weapons

Cruisers have a bonus to power output in all four subsystems (weapons, shields, engines and auxilliary)

Science Vessels have a bonus to auxiliary power output, are more effective at detecting cloaked opponents, and their superior targeting systems grant four subsystem targeting abilities to their captains (one for each subsystem)

Stations and Consoles

Stations are slots for bridge officers (see Bridge Officers and Stations in the Bridge Officers section, above, for details), while consoles are slots for console items that grant a variety of different bonuses according to class. Each of the ship categories has different distributions of stations and consoles:

Escorts have more Tactical consoles together with more and/or higher ranked Tactical stations. Escorts are the only ships to feature Lt Commander (at Tier 3+) and Commander (at Tier 4+) rank Tactical stations

Cruisers have more Engineering consoles together with more and/or higher ranked Engineering stations. Cruisers are the only ships to feature Lt Commander (at Tier 3+) and Commander (at Tier 4+) rank Engineering stations

Base Stats

The three categories of ship also differ in their basic statistics. The following table summarises the relative differences between the categories over all tiers:

High

Medium

Low

Weapon Slots

Cruiser

Escort

Science

Shields

Science

Cruiser

Escort

Hull

Cruiser

Escort

Science

Crew

Cruiser

Science

Escort

Turn Rate

Escort

Science

Cruiser

Speed

Escort

Science

Cruiser

The specific values of these statistics and the differences between the categories varies according to tier. For more details on the different ships available at each tier and their stations, consoles and other stats, Suricata’s STO Ship Tier Chart is highly recommended.

Which Ship?

In STO, all captains can command all three categories of ship, and can switch between any ships they own at Starbases. Like your choice of captain class, your choice of ship is mainly a matter of what you want your character’s focus to be in space combat and what role you want to fill in teams.

The following table gives a general overview of the strengths of each combination of captain class and ship category:

Escort

Cruiser

Science

Tactical

Offence

Offence + Defence

Offence + Support

Engineer

Offence + Defence

Defence

Defence + Support

Science

Offence + Support

Defence + Support

Support

Where two strengths are listed, the one in bold text is the primary focus – so Offence + Defence means a combination of offence and defence with the emphasis on offence, while Offence + Support means a combination of offence and support with the emphasis on support abilities.

Incredible piece of work, I paid 20 bucks for a unofficial guide and it doesn’t have half the detail you’ve included here. Quite frankly you have a commercially viable guide right here, although we STO lovers appreciate you giving it free. If you add a donate button I’ll happily pay you for your time to add more content.

I agree with all the positive comments on your great job. Well written and I am amazed at the detail you’ve discovered in a short time. I’ve been in the betas and it’s obvious you’ve been really methodical in learning so much in a short time to share with us. I’ve bookmarked the site and I’ll be looking forward to your future work.
Thanks.

However, smth is bothering me, and I can’t find any relevant info on forums: let’s say I have an ensign TAC BOff with High Yield Torps I, which I max out to the highest, 9th rank. In time, I promote him to Lt. and I’d like to replace HYT I with II (although the game puts it in his Lt. ability slot), thus freeing his ensign slot for training some other lvl 1 ability. Is this a good tactic? Will the HYT II with only 1 or 2 ranks in it be nerfed compared to maxed out HYT I?

As mentioned in the Bridge Officers section, a bridge officer’s skill in their space abilities reduces the recharge of the ability – your captain’s skills increase the effect.

In the example you describe, the Torpedo: High Yield II ability will give a bigger damage bonus than Torpedo: high Yield I, as it’s the higher level version, but it will take longer to recharge if your bridge officer has a lower skill in it.

I am not sure that a BO can only have 1 skill per rank. in OB I had numerous BOs that I had cross trained to have say first 2 ranks of ground and replaced the higher 2 ranks with space abilities making those 6 total.

It may of been my using blue BO rewards with special skills to train-up green ones.

The ability alone to cross train and make dedicated land/space BOs is an awesome thing.

It’s two abilities per rank – one space, and one ground, with a skill for both.

If you look at the Skills tab for one of your bridge officers (first pic in the Bridge Officers section, above), you’ll see two rows of four abilities. The top row is ground abilities and the bottom row is space abilities. Both rows are arranged by rank – Ensign abilities on the left, through to Commander abilities on the right. The bridge officer’s skill in each ability is listed below it.

You can switch these abilities with others through the various training options, but a bridge officer will always end up with one ground and one space ability per rank.

Excellent Guides, read this and your second one and am blown away at the time you have taken to help people understand. Thanks from a fellow WordPress Blogger, added you to my links, essential reading.

Minor correction. Targetable skills eg Science Team are used on the target of the enemy you have targeted (which is always yourself when soloing, but not when in a team). Theres an option in the UI to turn off assist targeting to make yourself always the target of friendly abilities when you dont have someone else explicitly targeted.

[…] excellent detailed write ups so far. But for someone new this is what you really need to know on Character Basics starting out in STO especially having gone through it myself. Its a very solid write up in my […]

I haven’t taken a close look at the numbers yet, but my current understanding is that:

* Starship Warp Core Training boosts the effective power level of all systems with a low power setting (ie, it provides a bigger boost to systems set at 25 than at 50, and no boost for systems set at 75 or higher)
* [System] Efficiency skills behave in the same way, but only for their specific system
* [System] Performance skills provide a boost to their specific system regardless of its current power setting

I’m planning to look into the exact numbers at some stage, but as some of the skills are Tier 5, it’s a long term project. ;)

I have noticed in several places the statement about escorts being the only ship class able to mount cannons. But I have cannons mounted on my science vessel and they seem to work just fine. Are there weapons labeled as cannons in the game that aren’t truly cannons, or is this outdated information?

Yes, I need to clarify that. Certain low ‘Mark’ cannon weapons can be mounted on all ships, but the higher Marks (III and above, I believe) can only be mounted on Escorts or various Klingon ship types.

My friend just gave me an STO guest pass yesterday, and I found your guide while waiting for the client to download. I can tell already that your work is going to greatly speed along my learning curve for this game, and look forward to refering back to your guide as a bookmarked resource. Thanks so much for the time and effort you’ve clearly spent to help an STO noob. See you in the alpha quadrant!

Thanks so much this should be of great help
my kids have been playing MMO for years but i have
never played before but I have always been a real Star Trek fan so my son signed me up so I’ve just been winging it not really understanding how everything corelated, actually just keeping my ship and the one i was interacting with on screen was a real trick at first. Thanks again

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this game for weeks now, and i was trying to decide whether to cop it or not, and i eventually, well the other day, ordered it online and i’ve been waiting for it in the mail for a couple days. And in those days i was trolling forums and everywhere trying to get a grasp of the game and how i’m going to build my officers, ship, captain and everything. It wasn’t until i saw this guide that i understood anything.

You have officially given the game to me, told me everything i need to know and i’m completely and utterly grateful for that, THANK YOU VERY MUCH SIR!

This is a wonderful guide, well written and easy to understant. Thank you so much. One question I do have–for bridge officer skills, do you need to have the lower tier skill in order to use the higher tier skill, e.g. do you have to have science team 1 in order to use science team 2?